First go at a website

[David Higgs]

www.milesfromhere.co.uk

for a forthcoming exhibition

very new to this, I'm thick skinned and listen to any advice - so let me know honest opinons, I'm still not set on the gallery pictures, I have more 'chocolate box' type pictures that I could use rather than the more individual pictures in the current gallery. Still pondering that one.

[rcdurston]

Nice images David.
The contact page is pushed a little to the left compared to the gallery and about pages. A little nag for me. Also, just a personal preference, I prefer to control the images when I view them, so I'm not big into the slideshow thing.
Do you shoot commercially as well? Why not have a link to it on this site?

all the best
Rob

[Sean Galbraith]

Not a fan of the flash slideshow. Would much rather have a page with a bunch of photos in a column that I can scroll through.

I really like the portrait of you. Very funny!

[Hector.Navarro]

Not a fan of the flash slideshow. Would much rather have a page with a bunch of photos in a column that I can scroll through.

I really like the portrait of you. Very funny!

David, first, let me say that you have some great photographs there, congratulations. I also do my own processing of negatives and enlargements, so I know the amount of effort involved.

I agree with Sean: some photographs catch my attention more than others and would like to spend more time watching them.
Of course I do not mean to make the slideshow time per picture longer, but to have the option of thumbnails (as I suppose some people prefer slideshow).

Also you might consider changing the background colour to a dark gray instead of black, as two of your photographs (couple of trees and the wave) are near black around the borders/corners and merge with the background. Of the several iterations I've made to my site over the years, I have had the background white, black and now dark gray which I think looks better. It's your choice of course.

[Mike Anderson]

Just my opinion:

* Priority 1: The gallery should have an option other than slideshow. Being forced into a slideshow can be irritating. (Try a test: ask some friends to take a look. Later find out how many completed the slideshow.)

* I'd use the same exact banner font and blue text on the home page that's on the other pages.

* Consider: in the banner on all pages make it clear that this is about a show (place and date etc.) as it is on the home page. Something more prominent than the lower left corner.

* On the about page on the left there's 3 left margins (banner, "about", and the paragraph text). I'd make it 1 or 2 margins, either everything aligned with the banner, or move the word "about" right to align with the paragraph text. In any case the pink "Gallery North", if you're going to keep it in that corner should be aligned left with the banner. (That's great image on that page BTW.)

* The contact page needs some alignment work.

If this really is your first try at a website it's impressive. I'm sorry to say doing all these little alignment tweaks at this stage can be surprisingly difficult and time consuming. I'd work on an alternative to the slideshow gallery first.

...Mike

[David Higgs]

thanks for your advice

work in progress

my plan was to keep the slideshow look until the show is over and then expand that site to cover all my work - but with thumbnails as an option

I've found on the whole photographers don't like the slideshow look, but non photographers like it, it's to give a flavour of what's on at the show - go to the show to see the images, that was the idea anyway!

Spent all weekend just getting the emails to work, so have run out of time for this week